Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy what to ask for in K next year

What worked for us in a very similar situation was to contact the principal of the school and say, basically, what you said in your post. That is, this is where are DS is and we know that the teacher will have a broad range of abilities that he/she will need to meet, and these are the solutions we have thought about; we'd really like your advice about what you think will work best for DS next year. Just lay it all out on the table and ask politely for their help and expertise.

First, this allows you to start your new relationship with them (since you already have a relationship with the regarding your DD) with a compliment and and an acknowledgement that they have years of experience with education in general. It gives you an opportunity to introduce them to your DS. And it gives them the opportunity to help you, and helping is something everyone intrinsically likes to do.

And then sit back and see what they have to say. In our case the school tested DS and observed DS and realized that differentiation was going to be a very involved thing and it would be unreasonable to expect a K teacher to make all the accomodations necessary to meet our DS's needs, so they suggested he skip K.

If nothing else, though, going to the school and asking for their help with get a dialogue started about your DS in a relatively non-threatening manner. In any case it will be a longer process than just one meeting and will likely continue over the years (I k now you know this). At least you'll get the process started and see if you need to start thinking of other options.

Have you met with the school yet? Have they assigned teachers for next year yet? Can you get some help from the GT coordinator even though they don't have any official for kindy?

We found it extremely helpful to start out asking for advice from the school GT coordinator (even though there was no official GT until 3rd at our school). She set up a meeting with the principal to discuss strategy, which basically involved picking out the right teacher who was very good at differentiation. The GT coordinator also ended up doing pullouts with my DS, but that was their idea after I offered to pay for online math.

As for differentiation for reading, I didn't worry to much about that in kindy as DS read a lot on his own and the teacher did in fact ask all kinds of questions that would hit kids at different ranges.

Another thought is to ask if they offer core classes at the same time as other grade levels. Even though going up a grade or two in a subject may not even meet your child's level, it's a lot closer and he might find company in some of the students. This didn't work out in our situation because of timing and also because our DS's writing was really bad and the school didn't want to deal with that. If there are handwriting issues, may be a good idea to work on that over the summer in case an acceleration opportunity comes up.

DYS was able to help us by talking with the GT coordinator, who was then able to understand how different a learner our kiddo was.

The teacher-pleaser thing was a problem for our DS. He was always extremely well behaved and never would complain to the teacher. We got the complaints at home and the teacher could hardly believe us when we said our DS was unhappy, since he appeared perfectly happy at school. Also, our kiddo was not a hand raiser - he didn't like to stand out at all. So the teacher even thought he was BEHIND verbally, which is really his strength.

ETA: What finally changed the teacher's mind was seeing the results on the school's own tests -- they let DS do MAP testing with the 2nd graders, and when he tested well enough to pass the 3rd grade state assessments (as a kindergartner), they saw him.

I think it might be a good idea to go in now, asking for their help.


This is the same situation that we were in, as I described in my above post.


Not that it helps, but I just think it's terribly sad that the accommodations your are asking for are for your son to be able to sit and teach himself while all the other kids around him are getting the excitement of learning cool new stuff in Kindergarten (!). Obviously not a comment on you, but on the sad state of gifted education in so many places. I just hope that the school can come up with some great ways to allow your son to feel the joy of learning (which he cleraly already feels naturally) with other students in a school setting. It's still beyond me why educators wouldn't see the natural joy, drive, and ability that our kids have and want to do everything they could to nurture it.

They test all K kids for baseline skills in the first couple of weeks and redo class assignments based on that, so there is little point asking for a particular teacher. I am told they do pay some attention to what kids come in with due to the odd demographics. They are not totally unused to seeing K and 1 kids with high abilities. However, most magnet sibs do NOT go to K and 1 at the school. Believe it or not, I don't think there IS a GT coordinator, I guess because they have FT GT teachers.

It may all be better than I think it will. There is some reason for optimism due to the presence of the magnet in the older grades. There are a lot of gifted kids hanging around this school! However, not nearly as many little ones.

The principal is in an unusual situation due to the fact that the gen ed school serves a disadvantaged population but then she has this smaller magnet within the school. TBH, I don't know how concerned she will be about the needs of a well-behaved HG kindergartener from a stable home. I don't particularly blame her, but it puts us at a disadvantage. The school is also quite large.



Which one were you going to pay for? This is something I am happy to put on the table for them.

We tried out EPGY for awhile. It was actually quite boring for my DS, but he was able to do it on his own. (After the GT coordinator saw it in action, she decided it was too dry for a kindergartner and created a compacted curriculum with the school's 2nd grade math and she basically tutored him. That was awesome.) There is a homeschooler's group from this site so the EPGY is not so expensive. But there are other programs that would probably work too - Aleks, e.g. I think even Khan now has an individualized program that is free.

Another thing we did: donated higher level books to the classroom (our DS didn't like to stand out by bringing his own books in, so I just sneakily gave them to the teacher).

I will try to think of other things we did when I have more time...

ultram, one thing I'd do is to first try to find out what the kindergarten curriculum and classroom experience is really like at this school (if you haven't already). Many of the things you worry about in your OP were never an issue in our kindergarten - reading was broken up into small groups based on ability, math included basic skills that your ds already knows, but it was primarily made up of applied problems so that even though the skills were easy for my kids the actual problems were new. There was a lot of group work, and there were subjects taught that were interesting, and ways for kids who thought deeper to explore deeper. It wasn't ideal and it definitely didn't offer a pace of learning at the pace our EG kiddo was capable of, but it wasn't mind-numbingly boring either.

The one question I have is you mentioned the sibs of many of the kids in the gifted magnet school within your school don't go to K-1 grade at the same school - is that because their neighborhood schools are different or is it because their parents are purposely not sending them there? If it's the latter reason, I'd want to know more about why... that may be a sign that advocating isn't going to get you much of anything. OTOH, you said your school places students in K with teachers after a few weeks of observing where they are at academically... so that sounds promising that the school is aware of the need to differentiate.

Good luck!

polarbear

Hi ultramarina,

As to the school configuration, we are in exactly the same setup for DS7. A gifted magnet in a Title 1 school. At our school, they are quite interested/motivated to support the magnet:
The magnet parents are at every event, every PTA meeting.
They tend to be the ones volunteering in classes.
When the school or a teacher needs extra supplies, guess which group is bringing them in.
Gifted kids are locked in passes in standardized tests.
Gifted kids despite their quirks are often very helpful and easier to manage and make great reading buddies later on.

I have spoken to some other parents in the magnet whose kids have done K and 1. Experiences are mixed--"okay," sometimes "good." What it absolutely isn't going to be is a challenging K classroom like you might find in an UMC area of mostly high-ability kids.



Both. Very few of the magnet kids are actually zoned for this school. I had to get a special variance to get DS in since it isn't our zone either. Our zoned school is no good at all, so this is a better option.

Ugh. Only about three weeks left of preschool, but DS is crying every morning before school, and sometimes now at dropoff (never used to happen). This isn't the way it's supposed to work. He just can't take it anymore. I wish anyone who doesn't believe that kids really care about boredom or that this is some red herring could hear him talk about this. As much I keep trying to convince myself that it's a social issue, or that he doesn't click with the teachers, or blah blah...I don't think so. He always says the same things, and he always has, and he's very clear and articulate. "I don't like school. I like playing on the playground and I like the centers, but I hate circle time and I hate the work we have to do. It takes too long and everything we have to do is so easy and boring. All my work is too easy for me and it's the same thing over and over. I never get to learn anything. Sometimes they let me do my math book, but not until I do the other work and then it's always time to do something else." This is harder than it sounds to watch because big tears are rolling down his face while he talks.